Facility Layout (Re)Design Using Planar and Network Location Approaches

9800429巴塔这笔赠款为图形布局软件的开发提供资金，该软件将基于研究运筹学中两个独立但相关的领域--选址理论和布局分析--之间的接口而开发的新理论。本研究将集中分析两个新问题。第一个问题称为平面布局问题，其中机器或单元/部门必须位于可用车间区域上，而其他现有的机器或单元/部门存在。在第二个问题中，称为混合平面/网络布局问题，新机器的位置必须与制造设施中的过道互补。对于这两个问题，重点是进行这些位置，以最大限度地减少物料搬运成本。一旦这两个问题被彻底分析，我们将开发一个集成的软件工具来实施研究的理论结果。目前的布局工具几乎完全专注于整个设施的重新设计。虽然这是大多数企业理想的做法，但更常见的做法是在现有制造设施上增加一些额外的空间，并重新布置现有和新机器，以利用全部可用空间并改善制造操作。开发的软件将专门针对车间布局的这种反复进行的重新设计努力。在理论方面，这项研究将把选址和布局分析这两个领域显著地“拉近”在一起，从而为科学文献做出贡献。这应该会激起科学界其他成员的额外工作和兴趣，因为这些领域的发展传统上是完全分开的。

9800429 Batta This grant provides funding for the development of a graphical layout software that will be based on new theory developed from researching the interface between two separate, yet related, fields in Operations Research -- location theory and layout analysis. This research will concentrate on the analysis of two new problems. The first one is called the planar layout problem in which machines or cells/departments have to be located on the available shop floor area in the presence of other existing machines or cells/departments. In the second problem, called the mixed planar/network layout problem, the new machines have to be located such that they complement the aisles in the manufacturing facility. For both problems, the focus is to perform these locations so as to minimize the material handling cost. Once the two problems have been thoroughly analyzed, we will develop an integrated software tool to implement the theoretical results of the study. Current Layout tools focus almost exclusively on the redesign of an entire facility. Though this is ideally what most businesses want to do, it is much more common to add some additional space to an existing manufacturing facility and to relayout both the existing and the new machines so as to utilize the total space available and improve manufacturing operations. The software developed will specifically address such recurring reengineering efforts on shop-floor layouts. On the theoretical end, this research will contribute to the scientific literature by bringing the two fields of location and layout analysis significantly "closer" together. This should stir additional work and interest from other members of the scientific community, since developments in these fields have traditionally stayed quite separated.